This invention relates to a chewing gum product with a hard coating thereon, and in particular to sugarless chewing gum products with a hard coating comprising erythritol, and methods of making such products.
Chewing gums, including pellet chewing gums, are frequently enclosed with hard or soft coatings. Coatings provide an opportunity for the manufacturer to vary product characteristics such as taste, appearance and nutritional value. In recent years, efforts have been devoted to producing sugarless hard coatings for use in chewing gum. Sugarless coatings which have been investigated include coatings containing compounds such as xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol and hydrogenated starch hydrolysates.
Erythritol has been proposed for use as a chewing gum ingredient. U.S. Pat. No. 5,120,550 discloses a chewing gum made with a sweetening agent containing erythritol and a liquid sugar alcohol.
Low calorie sweetening compositions containing meso-erythritol are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,080,916 and No. 4,902,525, EPO Patent Publication No. 0 325 790, and Japanese Patent Publications No. 89-225458 and No. 90-104259.
Japanese Patent No. 89-51045 discloses chewing gum made with a melted mixture of meso-erythritol and sugars or sugar alcohols.
EPO Patent Publication No. 0 497 439 discloses a sweetener employing the use of spray dried erythritol.
EPO Patent Publication No. 0 511 761 discloses a sweetening composition made up of erythritol, sorbitol, and a glucose oligomer.
PCT Publication No. W093/00828 discloses a stabilized dipeptide sweetening composition which is useful in chewing gum and may contain erythritol.
Other patents and publications which discuss erythritol include U.S. Pat. No. 4,382,963 and No. 5,156,866 (erythritol used in chewing gum); Japanese Patent Publications No. 92-287658 and No. 92-287659, both published Oct. 13, 1992, (sweetening compositions containing meso-erythritol); Japanese Patent Publication No. 93-137535 published Jun. 1, 1993, (free flowing sweetener containing erythritol) and European Patent Publication No. 0 530 995, published Mar. 10, 1993, (lozenge containing sweetener which is all or partly erythritol or maltitol).
EPO Patent Publication No. 0 009 325 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 81-18180 disclose a method of reducing dental caries with a sugarless chewing gum made with erythritol. Example VIII of these equivalent EPO and Japanese applications dust the example chewing gum composition with erythritol powder.
Sugarless xylitol coated pellet gums have become very popular and products are being manufactured in Europe and Canada. Coating with xylitol is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,105,801, issued Aug. 8, 1978, to Dogliotti; No. 4,127,677, issued Nov. 28, 1978, to Fronczowski et al.; No. 4,146,653, issued Mar. 27, 1979 to Mader et al.; No. 4,681,766, issued Jul. 21, 1987, to Huzinec et al.; No. 4,786,511, issued Nov. 22, 1988, also to Huzinec et al.; and No. 4,828,845, issued May 9, 1989, to Zamudio-Tena et al.
The cost of xylitol is quite high, and replacement of the xylitol in the coating would be an advantage. There is a need for a less expensive sugarless coating for chewing gum, especially one that produces a smoother coating, dries easier and is less hygroscopic than other sugarless coatings.